


foolish

by cakecakecake



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Aging, Body Worship, F/M, Insecurity, Leon is 40, May/December Relationship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pining, Scars, Sex at Sea, Tressa is 25, Vaginal Sex, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16370807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: his first foolish idea was inviting her along this mission in this first place, and his next was hoping he’d have her as close as she is now. the foolish idea of sleeping with her hasn’t been something he’d imagined being possible, but now with his foolish lips less than angel’s whisper away from hers, he apologizes to his foolish heart for inviting the next hammer it will take to shatter when they have to say goodbye.





	foolish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samaohichiya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samaohichiya/gifts).



> thank you so much my friend for commissioning me! i hope i've done your dears justice! the prompt you gave me was so beautiful. i had such an experience writing it!

“You’ve cut your hair.”

She beams at him, like she’d been waiting for him to notice. The ring of her laughter stokes a panic in him like church bells do a sinner, a holy sound on unworthy ears. She cards a hand through her dark tresses, silky and sun-kissed. “Yeah, easier to manage -- do you like it?”

He loves it, but he doesn’t want to come off too strong. “I do.”

Tressa giggles again, swirling the contents of her mug before taking a long sip of mead. Leon follows suit, careful eyes watching her over the rim of his cup. Studying her.

Remarkable, what a few years’ time does. Leon notes the curve of her jaw, wondering if it’s always been so sharp or if it’s just the angle of the fresh cut of hair. She seems taller, or maybe it’s just the way she squares her shoulders, but she’s definitely gotten a little broader, battle-hardened and muscular. Streaks and splotches of pink skin on her arms look newer, fresh, each one a seafaring story to be told and he hopes he might get to hear of them, especially the one across her cheek. (Her cheeks, still rounded and soft despite her growing age.) Her nose wrinkles up as she sets her drink down. 

“Not much for the taste, are you?” he can’t help but tease her. 

“It’s a little bitter,” she says sheepishly. 

Leon leans back in the chair, smacking his lips before taking another sip. “I can get you something sweeter.”

“I’m sure you could.” 

Leon sputters, thumping his chest as he fights for his breath. An all-too familiar flicker of something he often sees in barmaids and passing window-shoppers is glinting in her eyes, but he cannot (will not) allow himself to analyze it. Like the glow of a firefly, it sparks for a fleeting moment; it’s there and then it’s gone, and she’s been smiling at him all this time anyway. It’d be easy to mistake her playfulness for something else. He groans, dabbing at his chin with a table napkin.

“So you’re looking to go West, are you?”

“I am,” she tells him, leaning over the table enough to rest her tits upon it. He watches the candlelight dance along her skin, shadows bouncing along the exposed expanse of her ample chest. His eyes linger there a moment, but only so. 

“There’s an island I’ve heard is home to a really rare golden flower, and I wish to see if the rumors are true,” she explains, voice quivering a bit from her excitement. Leon thumbs over his chin, pursing his lips.

“Show me your map again.”

She tugs on the open pouch at her waist and pulls out the dog-eared map, pointing at an indistinct splotch. “There, it’s an unnamed island a few miles off here.”

Leon narrows his eyes, noticing the proximity of the island to the Caves of Maiya. With a brief glance up at her, he has an idea -- a terrible, foolish, utterly ridiculous idea, but an idea. 

“Well, I don’t know how fond you’d be of my crew,” he hesitates, watching her brows arch up in interest, “but the Caves are our next mission.”

“Wait, are you -- “

“I could use an extra pair of hands on deck,” he smiles down into his drink, knowing he’ll flush fuchsia if he meets her eyes and she giggles dreamily across from him.

“Oh, Leon, this is -- I can’t believe it, this is a -- “

“The honor would be mine, lass,” he says slowly, glancing up at her. She smiles back in a way that he knows that _she_ knows he means it. They finish their drinks in a comfortable quiet, Tressa pays (after much insistence), and the two of them make for the docks.

*

The ships rocks at an easy pace into the night, steadfast and lulling as Leon scribbles in his log. He’s hunched over his writing desk, jotting down the events of the day, trying to think of anything that isn’t the ripple of Tressa’s biceps, or the sculpt of her pert tits. He drags a hand down his face, groans into his palm. Remarkable indeed, what time can do to a person. He gives the hanging mirror a sideways glance, blinks at his reflection in the dirty glass. Notes the old scars across his nose, the deep violet sags under his stormy eyes. Time has not done him the same kindness it has to Tressa and he wonders if she notices -- or perhaps she sees it differently. The girl has always had a keen eye for dangerous things, maybe -- 

_No_ , he denies himself, feeling foolish. She’s sprightly, curious, spontaneous -- but perhaps not in the sense of...well. He takes a swig from the half-empty bottle at his desk. He can’t decide which notion frightens him more: the hope that she’ll be enticed enough to pursue him, or the idea that he’s getting too old for this sort of excitement. 

As he pulls at this inner tug-o’-war, a rapid stoccato of harsh knocks jolts him from his seat. The crew knew better than to bother him at this hour. His stomach lurches, a frightful mix of dread and hope knotting in his gut as he makes for the cabin door. 

As much to his chagrin as his delight, there she stands in his doorway, smile stretching wide between her rosy cheeks.

“Tressa,” Leon coughs, gaze drawn down the slit in her nightdress. She breathes out a laugh, her eyes fixated on his face, burning brightly under the fan of her lashes. 

“May I come in?” she asks as plainly as one would ask if they’d like butter on their toast. She clamps her bottom lip between her teeth and tilts her head and Leon feels like he’s aged ten years more in the span of two seconds. 

“Tressa…” he says again, rubbing his temples. “What’re you doing up so late, lass? You’ve had such a journey...aren’t you tired?”

“It’s not that late,” she counters, striding inside despite not being invited (oh, rubbish, as if he’d turn her away). “And I’m not that tired.”

“Aye, well I am,” he says with little conviction, and she raises her brows, looking about the cabin and giggling.

“You don’t look to be,” she flatters him and he rolls his eyes.

“Very kind of you not to point out the dark circles, but,” he mutters, “they’re only getting worse with age.”

“You see darkness, but I see something different,” she starts, more seriously now, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it. Tressa curls her hair behind her ears and it slips back to fall around her face. Leon rests back in his chair, crossing an ankle on top of his knee. 

“Do you, now?” he challenges her, knowing she likely doesn’t have a concrete answer and although he’s probably right, it’s not as if it really matters. “What is it that you see, then, lass?”

He half expects a quip dripping sarcasm or a lull of silence as she chews her lip over how to counter, but her answer is nothing like either. Instead she lifts her head, smile gone from her face but voice thick enough to be dipped in molasses as she answers simply, “You.”

Tressa crosses to him and Leon watches her watch him, watches her eyes swallow him bottom to top before leaning on the armrests of the chair to hover above him. He quickly straightens up his legs, anticipating her to crawl into his lap already, but she doesn’t -- not right away. She brushes the hair out of his eyes, and he leans back, heat flaring up the length of his neck as the color blossoms in her cheeks. 

“You,” she says again, quieter. He clears his throat.

“In my age, I am afraid,” Leon starts, just as quiet, “that I am not much to look at these days, Tressa.”

Brows drawn together in a sorrowful frown, the young traveler peers down at him with the same woe in her doe eyes that his late beloved used to look at him with and he wonders, briefly, if Baltazar would agree. He can hear him in his head, making fun of his wrinkles, his discolored patches. Or perhaps Baltazar too would fear his own aging. But the woman before him seems to fear neither, seems to see nothing that he sees when he looks into a mirror. Tressa leans in closer, her mouth mere inches from his.

“In all my travels, I’ve fought to see so many of the beautiful things our world has to offer,” she wavers. Her voice cracks in such a way that makes her sound nineteen again and Leon swallows thickly, gripping the armrests tightly enough to scratch the wood, unblinking up at her. “But for all the frosted mountain peaks, all the emerald forests, the sunsets at sea…”

She sweeps his hair off his shoulders. Hesitation, before she touches her calloused hands to his face, thumbs tracing over his age lines. Around his eyes, around his mouth. The bridge of his nose, up to the dip in his brow. He wants to shut his eyes, but he doesn’t want to miss it. The dance of the lantern’s light in the soft colors of her irises. She whispers to him now.

“...there’s never been one more breathtaking than you, Captain.” 

Words trap in his throat, stuck at the base in a suffocating knot as he loses himself in her stare. Such childishly romantic words shouldn’t stir him the way that they do, but it’s _her_ \-- it’s Tressa. What sorts of street artists she’s learning these colorful phrases from, it shouldn’t matter -- her honest heart doesn’t mean them any less. Leon smiles against her open palm. A light kiss, two, against her finger tips. She sighs. So does he.

“There’s many a lad more deserving for such sweet words, Tressa,” he says, not because he doesn’t want to hear them, but because it’s what he believes. What she should believe. She shakes her pretty head. She bends down to kiss his knees, rub his thighs. He’s already started to ache.

“Many a lad are nothing like you, Captain.” Her voice comes in a purr, sultry and unfamiliar. He decides he likes it very quickly. His hands find her hair and tug. 

“Tressa,” he means to warn her, to tell her he’ll take no pity, that the years have been so hard that loneliness is as much a friend to him as the sapphire ocean herself. But he forgets that she’s not nineteen anymore -- she’s been places he hasn’t, met people he hasn’t. Marks on maps that he’s never followed. Tressa Colzione knows what she wants and will find a way to get it. 

“Is it so hard to believe that I want you?” As if she could read his mind. Like she can sense his doubt. Or maybe he’s just getting more transparent with age.

“You’ve never given me reason to underestimate you, lass,” he tells her, rather than keep it to himself. “Yet I’m not sure if that’s what it is that I’ve done with you.” 

“You think you’re just protecting me,” she answers for him, smiling coyly. She rests her chin on his knee. “You always wanted to look out for me.”

“You could be the strongest person in the world and I would still want to shield you from it,” he croaks. He feels the knot in his throat tighten and he can’t swallow it down. Her smile melts away, that doleful look coming back. He doesn’t want to make her sad. “I counted myself among the dangers that could await you.”

“If you don’t stop talking me in circles,” she starts to tease, “ _I’m_ going to be a danger to _you_.”

_You already are_ , he doesn’t say. He wonders if he needs to, if he should. But he doesn’t want to ruin the moment -- her moment. If anyone deserves to have this moment, this glorious reprieve from the harsh realities of their troubling life, it’s Tressa Colzione. So Leon says nothing. 

Instead, he pinches her chin, lifting her head, wordlessly asking her to rise and she does. Considering for only a moment, she finally, finally crawls into his lap. The fragrance of her sandalwood and jasmine lotions flood his nostrils, dizzying him. She rests her forehead against his, her falling hair almost tickling his collarbone. His chest heaves. She grips the lapels of his open coat. 

“Tressa,” he starts, without knowing how he wants to finish this foolish sentence. There’s not much left to say now. His first foolish idea was inviting her along this mission in this first place, and his next was hoping he’d have her as close as she is now. The foolish idea of sleeping with her hasn’t been something he’d imagined being possible, but now with his foolish lips less than angel’s whisper away from hers, he apologizes to his foolish heart for inviting the next hammer it will take to shatter when they have to say goodbye. 

The young merchant smiles upon hearing her name. Her soft hands slide up to cradle his face, thumbs gracing his jaw. “I want you,” she says simply. Reassuring. He wants her too, but it hurts too much to say so.

So foolishly, he just kisses her. Just a kiss, and perhaps it will quench her obvious unladen thirst, but Leon remembers what being twenty-five was like. It feels so much longer ago than it actually has been. He feels even older with his lips on hers, her sweet tongue rolling over his eagerly, excited to explore. He hasn’t tasted something like this in so long, too long. He holds the back of her head, raking his fingers in her cropped hair and she fidgets in his lap, straddling him proper and he keeps kissing her gluttonously. Like he’ll never have his fill of her, because surely she won’t want this to progress. 

But then she pauses, pulling away with a stretch of saliva connecting them. She smirks, making sure he’s watching as she pulls the lacing of her nightdress, letting it fall over her shoulders. Leon groans. Nothing underneath, of course. The peaks of her breasts are already shiver-hard. Tressa cranes her neck, inviting him. He obliges, gladly.

Teeth at her sunset skin, Leon sucks at her neck, savoring the salted sweetness of the day’s musk and the sweat of her anticipation, feeling his own perspiration growing worse. Tressa yanks at his coat and he shrugs it off, letting it sag off behind them on the chair. She starts moaning softly, gasping now and again and he gets rougher, biting harder to coax some louder noises out of her. She laughs a little, delighted. Seems to be happy to not be handled so delicately. She threads her hands in his cornflower hair and pulls hard and he, in turn, sucks harder at her skin, relishing the blues and purples painted by his teeth and tongue. 

“Captain, Captain,” she murmurs, driving her hips down into him and he lifts his head.

“Aye, lass, what would you have?” he asks her, voice heavy and grating, dark.

Tressa slides off of him, a wild grin across her glowing face. Cocking her head to the back of the room, she waggles her finger, practically hopping to the other door leading to the hutch of the cabin, where Leon keeps his bed. How she knew it’d been there was his guess, but he follows her there anyway, heart beating hard in his chest. He’s come too far to change his mind, and he _does_ want this, want her. Whether or not it hurts him is a problem for tomorrow, a problem he can add to the list of sorrows he can drink away later.

For now, he lets himself smile with her, revel in the music of her laughter as she tugs on his shirt, eager to pull it off around his head. Her palms spread over his chest, his stomach, watching his breath reach the dip in his hips. His muscles flicker under the marred skin and he feels the shame burning there, but her eyes are sparkling.

“I had no idea you looked like this, under all those layers,” she marvels at him. His heart races under her touch.

“Like what, a pirate?” he pokes fun at her and she groans. 

“Well, _yes_ , Captain, but I had never thought of…” The words seem to stick in her throat, like she knows what she wants to say but feels embarrassed. She doesn’t have to be. He takes her hand, kisses it. 

“All the scars,” she begins softly, “they’re like a map across your body.”

Leon’s chest tightens. Her fascination is so raw and genuine. He pulls her closer to him to kiss her again, and again, and she snakes her arms about his waist and pushes him onto his bed. Straddling him again, Tressa pulls at his belts and he lifts his hips, allowing her. She tosses them aside, giggling all the way, thrilled and antsy. Leon fights the urge to cry or scream or vomit, grabbing her face to kiss her desperately again before he can allow himself to do any of those things. 

His eyes are screwed shut as he groans into her mouth and she settles onto his groin, biting his bottom lip and he has to laugh appreciatively. “Ah, Tressa…”

“Captain,” she says, grinning wide, “you are so beautiful, Captain Leon.”

“Tressa,” he chokes, eyes burning as he struggles to smile up at her charming face. Words are hard. He wants to communicate what ails him, but perhaps he doesn’t need to. Tressa takes hold of his wrists, locking his hips in her thighs’ grip. Perhaps she can feel it in the jump of his pulse, the sheen of sweat on his brow. His throat bob with a hard gulp. He feels so out of place, yet there’s nowhere he’d rather be. He wants to tell her. (He doesn’t have to.)

“You’ve no idea, how many times I’d dreamed of this,” she tells him, her eyes watering as her stare bores holes into him. She bends her neck to caress his chest, every kiss like white-hot brands on his chest. Would that he could trap her kiss in another mark, another tattoo. She grazes the spot where his real tattoo had been, inches over his heart. “I’d wished so often that the tides would bring me to you again.” 

His face is burning. The thin fabric covering Tressa’s folds is getting wet enough that he can feel it through his pants. “Lass, you’ve no idea…” 

“To think I’d have the chance to journey with you,” she confesses, “it’s like a dream, something I’ve always wanted. To see the world like you see it, from the view from your ship…”

“Tressa,” he strains, holding her hips as she gyrates atop him. Jaw jut out as he sweats, breathes heavier. Her chest rises and falls quickly, breaths coming in short gasps and he’s not even --

“Captain, if I could -- “

She raises her hips to start tugging his pants off and he props himself on his elbows, heaving. Watching her uncover his leaking cock, marveling at it. He wonders if she’s seen a man up close. He decides he doesn’t want to know. He worries about her, briefly, but she looks confident. Nothing to worry about. 

“Tressa, are you -- “

Steadying herself, she reaches to guide him inside of her, grimacing but smiling. She holds onto his chest for balance, easing herself on his cock agonizingly slowly. A tighter fit than he’d expected. It makes his heart thunder, nerves all electric. A buzzing in his veins like lightning strikes. Over and over. She tosses her head back, yelling, her shrill voice reverberating off the walls.

“Captain! _Gods_ , Captain, you -- “

“Tressa,” he frets, but she’s laughing, starting to move. Setting a pace. He chews his lip. 

“Oh, Leon,” she whines, rocking forward. Planting her elbows on either side of his chest. She grinds into him, her walls seizing his cock. Her body crushed against him in a pleasant weight, her tits pressed against his sweating chest, sliding up and down as she swivels her body. 

Tressa leans up on her hands, craning her neck to kiss him. Messy, but with care. Sloppy. She must not do this often. Maybe he just likes to think that. He wonders if she’s waited for this. Maybe she didn’t, maybe she’s just this uninhibited. It would make sense for her. 

She pulls herself up to sit, hesitates a bit to find a pace she likes. She starts to bounce on top of him, too slowly at first, but picks up once he groans loudly. She laughs at that. Her hair is matted against her clammy skin. Glowing and glistening, she’s more beautiful than he’d thought she could be. He digs his hands into her thighs and thrusts up into her. 

“Too slow?” She sounds a little worried, quickening her pace again. He grits his teeth.

“Not if this is what you like,” he says. He means it. This is what she wants. She should have him however she’d like. He’s going to cum either way, anyway. Tressa whines.

Her hands brush over his scars, traverse the expanse of his chest. Over the bumps, the craters of skin. It doesn’t feel wrong suddenly, to have her touch them. He watches her eyes flicker here and there, studying each one. He’ll tell her the stories one day. One day when they share the same mission. Until then he’ll memorize what he feels like, buried in her walls. 

Leon slides a hand to her clit, to start rubbing at her clit with his blunt fingertips and she screeches her way through a laugh, bliss. Her jaw is slack, brows creased. Tressa collapses forward, grinding hard into him and kissing him messily, biting at his lip and his neck -- 

“Oh, Captain, I’m -- I’m -- “

“Let go, lass, let go,” he urges her. Her fists ball in his hair. Leon grips her waist and bucks his hips up into her, the rush of the rocking waves outside keeping time with his thrusts. Tressa crests her climax with a scream of his name, her body shuddering against his. Leon feels his own undoing upon him, containing himself enough to let her ride out her pleasure. She sighs against his neck, kissing and biting at him before rolling off and he pulls out of her. Thick ropes of cum coat his stomach and chest and she kisses him through it, one hand cupping her folds and the other pumping his cock to the finish. He sweeps his tongue along her lips and she groans.

“You didn’t have to,” she hums, and Leon is too tired to over-analyze what she means. He flops back onto the mattress, wild mess of hair a golden spray across the pillows. When she decides he’s not going to say anything, she clarifies. “Pull out, that is. I take cautionary pills to help regulate my cycles already -- I was going to tell you, but -- “

Leon smiles, thankful she cared enough to fill in the gaps. He shakes his head, moving to reach the night dresser and retrieve a hand towel. He mops himself up ungracefully, watching her stretch and curl up next to him. Almost timid now, suddenly she seems to be afraid of encroaching upon his space. He winds his free arm around her, pulling her closer. She kisses his shoulder.

“I suppose you didn’t have to fuck me either, but I really wanted you to,” she admits, bashfully, avoiding his eyes. He laughs a little, the crude language a little strange to his ear. He turns her chin to face him, aching for her. 

“Tressa, I wanted this, too, I only…” 

He trails off, watching her stomach muscles flex with her deepened breathing. Lax and calm like waves upon the shore. She puffs her cheeks out in a pout, impatient. He won’t come to the end of that train of thought. 

Climbing on top of him, Tressa pins him down, still in her naked glory, wetness gliding across his abs. A pleasant heat, welcome and warm, musky and sweet. Her. 

“I know what you’re worried about, Leon,” she says, almost scolding him. 

“Do you?” It’s not that he doesn’t believe her. (He just wants her to say it.)

“I do,” she says. She smiles. Presses a delicate kiss to his lips again. “And if you think I won’t cross the seven seas to prove you wrong, then I think I’ll have to search for more than just flowers when we reach that island come morning.” 

Leon’s breath hitches, a smile caught on his lips before pulling her in to kiss him once more. He lingers there, commits the touch of her velvet mouth to memory. Savors the taste. The feel of her silky hair between his fingers. Tressa rests her face in the crook of his neck, her hand resting over the tattoo on his heart. He clutches her fingers, watching her eyes flutter shut. It’s not long before sleep takes her and he’s left staring at the ceiling. 

If he listens past the rumbling of the sea, he swears, he can hear the haughty laughter of his old friend. His late beloved -- Baltazar joking at his expense once again. 

“Foolish as ever, Leon,” he imagines he’s saying, dark hair waving like a sail behind him in the stormy winds. 

Leon smiles.

Foolish indeed.


End file.
